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Comment by flanked-evergl | Hacker News Reader

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Are vaccines like a high-profit margin item or something? I thought that honor went to cholesterol or obesity or depression medicine.

I hear from people who in the same breath then tell me the benefits of the natural chemical-free supplements they're taking, as if the supplement industry doesn't exist.

Not only "exists", but has managed to fight off almost any form of regulation whatsoever. There are no regulations requiring they disclose everything that is in the supplement (so a vitamin C supplement can contain Vitamin E, at any concentration, with no mention of it on the label), or that the label have correct concentration information, or be free from substances known to be toxic to humans. I think the only thing they're required to do is meet manufacturing facility standards.

Labdoor and others have found high levels of Arsenic and other poisonous materials in protein powder. Protein powder! Which apparently gets to skip all FDA regulation by being called a "supplement."

The pharmaceutical industry cannot make money off of you if you die of measles as an infant.

They absolutely will given how much an hospital stay costs.

Nit: when anyone dies in a hospital the money-makers are the health providers, not the drug-makers. Health providers (think “non-profit” hospitals and medical centers, as well as clinics) have the biggest operating profit margin and return on equity in this business: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/insurance-companies-arent-the-...

Where does your link say that?

Sorry maybe the link I pasted is pay-walled and probably the content is incomplete. Here is a link which is not paywalled https://archive.is/bRy5l

Thank you. And there is a WSJ article linked that talks about nonprofit hospitals having high executive comp and funding new projects. It does also say:

> To be sure, some nonprofit hospitals, particularly ones in inner cities that handle large numbers of uninsured patients, remain under financial strain and are struggling to keep their doors open.

And it is also worth mentioning that in some (many?) systems, 'providers' refers to physicians who aren't part of the hospital system in which they work. So the doctors can be doing just fine while the hospital is barely scraping by.

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